With the start of Chapter 16, a year has passed since the pledge was first made at the church, a year that “had made history so quickly that few people were able to grasp its significance” (165), and a group of new characters begin to appear in the narrative. During this time, the Reverend Calvin Bruce of Nazareth Avenue Church in Chicago (an old friend of Rev. Maxwell from their seminary days) visits Raymond and is astounded by what he finds. Writing home to a friend, he relates that he is “overflowing with what [he has] seen” (165). In the letter, he relates everything that he has seen and heard concerning the pledge and the work done by some of the more industrious citizens. When his time in Raymond comes to an end, he takes a train back home, “little realizing that the greatest crisis of his Christian ministry was about to break irresistibly upon him” (183).

Shifting the narrative away from Raymond to Chicago, Rose and Felicia Sterling attend a Saturday matinee together and afterwards speak together about the constant differences that are always appearing between the two of them. Rose remarks that Felicia is constantly concerned with what is happening in the lives of others less fortunate than she when she should keep to herself: “Felicia, you can never reform the world.